Career
Much of his work centers on black studies, and his best-known book is the 2001 anthology Literature, Race and Ethnicity: Contesting American Identities. Skerrett was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1943, and earned a Bachelor"s degree at Saint Francis College in 1964. He then earned an Master of Arts in creative writing at Johns Hopkins University in 1965, and a Doctor of Philosophy in English at Yale University.
His work at Yale focused on 20th century African-American literature.
Skerrett joined the University of Massachusetts, Amherst English Department in 1973. In 1974, Skerrett helped found and launch a new journal, MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, which brought attention to a diversity of American literatures, and their "interfaces.".